[4] ’Seven Dials! the region of song and poetry—­first
     effusions and last dying speeches:  hallowed by the
     names of Catnac and of Pitts, names that will entwine
     themselves with costermongers and barrel-organs, when
     penny magazines shall have superseded penny yards of
     song, and capital punishment be unknown!’ (S.B.S. 5.)

[5] The ‘Hutchinson family’ was a musical troupe composed of
     three sons and two daughters selected from the ’Tribe of
     Jesse,’ a name given to the sixteen children of Jesse
     and Mary Hutchinson, of Milford, N.H.  They toured in
     England in 1845 and 1846, and were received with great
     enthusiasm.  Their songs were on subjects connected
     with Temperance and Anti-Slavery.  On one occasion
     Judson, one of the number, was singing the ’Humbugged
     Husband,’ which he used to accompany with the fiddle,
     and he had just sung the line ‘I’m sadly taken in,’
     when the stage where he was standing gave way and he
     nearly disappeared from view.  The audience at first
     took this as part of the performance.

[6] Miss Rainforth was the soloist at the first production
     of Mendelssohn’s ‘Hear my Prayer.’ (See The Choir,
     March, 1911.)

[7] John Curwen published his Grammar of Vocal Music
     in 1842.

[8] Quoted in Mr. R.C.  Lehmann’s Dickens as an Editor
     (1912).

CHAPTER II

INSTRUMENTAL COMBINATIONS

VIOLIN, VIOLONCELLO, HARP, PIANO

Dickens’ orchestras are limited, both in resources and in the number of performers; in fact, it would be more correct to call them combinations of instruments.  Some of them are of a kind not found in modern works on instrumentation, as, for instance, at the party at Trotty Veck’s (Ch.) when a ’band of music’ burst into the good man’s room, consisting of a drum, marrow-bones and cleavers, and bells, ’not the bells but a portable collection on a frame.’  We gather from Leech’s picture that other instrumentalists were also present.  Sad to relate, the drummer was not quite sober, an unfortunate state of things, certainly, but not always confined to the drumming fraternity, since in the account of the Party at Minerva House (S.B.T.) we read that amongst the numerous arrivals were ’the pianoforte player and the violins:  the harp in a state of intoxication.’

We have an occasional mention of a theatre orchestra, as, for instance, when the Phenomenon was performing at Portsmouth (N.N.): 

    ‘Ring in the orchestra, Grudden.’